Selection Match? Going All Out (6)
I expected her to charge at me the moment she transformed, just like the other kids. Instead…
“…You’re calm.”
She adjusted her twin swords and watched my every move. If she had been paying attention to the previous matches, she would know I had no intention of attacking first. I preferred to gauge my opponent’s skill with their opening move before responding accordingly. A miscalculated ambush could end the match in an instant, after all. This was my own kind of handicap—yielding the first strike.
Realizing I wasn’t going to move, she finally approached with weapons in hand. The short blade in her left hand flashed before my eyes. A probing strike.
“Right-handed, huh.”
I lightly stepped back to dodge. Her left sword swung again, trying to steal my vision. I dodged this one too, but decided to block the next attack. The clash of steel rang out. Unlike the left, the sword in her right hand was longer and heavier. The powerful strikes that could actually land a decisive blow came from a person’s dominant hand. For the girl from Class 4, that was her right.
Dual-wielding was an incredibly tricky weapon style. It required complete mastery of both hands. Even ambidextrous fighters didn’t automatically excel with twin swords—they needed exceptional multitasking and spatial awareness to keep the trajectories from colliding. That was why most beginner magical girls who used dual blades kept a normal sword in their dominant hand and a shorter blade in the other, using the shorter one purely for feints while saving real attacks for the main hand. It was very similar to Japanese nitōryū.
In that sense, the girl from Class 4 had captured the feel of nitōryū quite well.
“You’re really good at blocking. I can’t find any openings.”
Mana-enhanced blades rained down on me in rapid succession. Weak-weak-strong-weak. Sometimes strong-weak-strong-weak. She coordinated her left and right hands with a rhythm of her own, attacks flowing in measured breaths. Her words sounded frustrated, but her voice still carried plenty of composure. She was holding something back. And that something was obviously a magical technique.
Her main target was my head—specifically my eyes. Since ordinary attacks weren’t giving her an advantage, she was trying to steal my vision and create an opening. It was a solid plan. Whether against monsters or humans, people perceived the world through their eyes. Disrupting vision could throw an opponent into momentary confusion. But humans—intelligent beings—thought. Repeat the same action too many times and the opponent would adapt. Repetitive attacks were easily dismantled.
“…Ugh!”
Eventually it backfired on her. There was a reason combat emphasized freedom and unpredictability.
“Your feints are too obvious. Try aiming somewhere else.”
“Got it. Thanks for the tip!”
After taking a kick and backing off slightly, she came at me again. A sparkle. The lingering mana scattered in the air began to glow. A magical technique. As the magic circle lit up, her left sword started radiating light. From what I could sense, it was a dense concentration of mana. And…
She hadn’t taken my advice. Once again she swung straight for my face to block my vision. The attack pattern was almost identical to before—only the power had increased thanks to the mana. I raised my staff—which was barely worthy of the name, just an empty rod—to block the obvious trajectory.
Halfway through, the path curved. Yet the speed and power didn’t decrease at all. In fact, they amplified. This was meant to be a finishing blow against an unguarded opponent.
“Not bad. Good attempt.”
I gripped my casually held weapon with both hands and swung it hard toward her torso. The force of the mana-packed strike swept through my entire body, and I endured it with raw strength. I had reduced some of the impact with a bit of mana, but it was still rough. There was a world of difference between a simple block and an attack infused with mana. Still, I managed to hold on through sheer technique until—
“Hiyaaaah!”
The sword in her right hand came crashing down toward me.
“That’s actually pretty good. You put a lot of thought into it.”
Her style was nitōryū. If one hand was blocked, she could simply attack with the other. Without easing the pressure on my staff with her left hand, she raised the sword in her right overhead.
…Well. At this point I had no choice but to use a little mana. Still, to achieve the maximum result with the minimum expenditure, I carefully drew up the smallest amount possible.
“Crescent Moon.”
I lightly deflected her all-out strike. Both her hands were flung backward. Realizing her attack had been rendered useless, the girl smiled.
“I didn’t expect that reversal. I lost. Hehe.”
She admitted defeat after my staff lightly bonked her on the forehead.
Here was an ordinary magical girl. A girl who had just entered the academy. The amount of mana she possessed without any training related to mana was perfectly average. And then there was me. A broken magical girl whose mana reserves were nearly zero—completely empty.
If I compared myself to a girl who had only just become a magical girl, what would the difference be? If her mana was 100, mine would be around 3 to 5.
…No. That was still too generous. Thinking again, 1 to 2 seemed more accurate. On a good day I might reach 3 or 4, but those occasions were rare enough to count on one hand.
With mana that approached zero, I had been forced to find ways to use it with maximum efficiency. If I accidentally overused it, I would end up like Sleeping Beauty. That was exactly why I had resolved both previous matches with pure martial arts. The mana techniques used by martial-type magical girls drew on the residual mana floating in the atmosphere. In other words, they required very little of my own mana. Of course, even magical techniques needed some mana to activate the magic circle, but by drastically altering the circle’s composition, the required mana could be greatly reduced. So even after two matches, I still had a decent amount of mana left.
…Relatively speaking, that is. “For having fought two matches.”
Anyway, the reason I went on at length about conserving mana was this: it was all for the sake of—
“Hehe. Sis, watch me!”
“Yeah… Haaam.”
Right now, the little kid and I both had 2 points. Tied. This next match would decide the final winner. Part of me wanted to just hand her the victory, but—
“Hehe.”
Despite the upturned corners of her mouth, her eyes were filled with a seriousness I had never seen before. It wouldn’t allow any mercy. Haah. This was why taking on the role of a teacher was exhausting. Back in Magica I had sworn that forsythia would be my last disciple as a magical girl. Life really was unpredictable.
“…You two start whenever you’re ready. I’ll only step in if it gets dangerous.”
“What? Teacher, you’re leaving the ring completely?”
The teacher suddenly tried to exit the ring. I was bewildered. If she was the referee, she should stay until the end. Where was she going?
“I believe you two will know when to stop on your own. Besides, I would only get in the way. Wouldn’t I?”
I didn’t think so at all. But when I glanced to the side, the little kid was nodding enthusiastically in agreement with the teacher.
“Thank you, Seoyeon-teacher! Thanks to you, I think I can fight my sister with everything I’ve got without worrying.”
The teacher winked at me as if to say, “See?” The two of them were clearly in sync. Or had they planned this beforehand? When had they gotten so close?
“I’ll be watching. Don’t worry about damaging the training hall. The faculty will handle it.”
“Got it. Then…!”
—For me, the brilliantly shining stars in the night sky exist to chase the dream I have longed for.
—To the magical girl standing before me now, I will show the starlight within me.
“Transform.”
“W-wait a second, kid!”
She was this serious? I knew she would go all out, but I hadn’t expected her to go this far. She was using the fact that transformation time had no limit under match rules to chant. As I had said before, chanting wasn’t necessary to transform into a magical girl. Only brand-new chicks who had just become magical girls bothered chanting. Still unfamiliar with transformation, they used the chant to visualize and materialize the image of their Root. But the little kid had already moved past that stage through her interactions with me. In other words, the chant carried a different meaning now. Having learned the concept of Root, the reason she sang was clearly different from before.
Full power. Since her mascot Salbyeol had chosen not to participate in the preliminaries, it wasn’t perfect, but the full might of the magical girl Starlight filled the training hall.
“What… is this……?”
“She’s the same first-year as us……?”
It was morning. Sunlight streamed in from outside, and even though the curtains were drawn, rays of light slipped through the gaps and settled on parts of the training hall. All the indoor lights were also on. In this bright morning, starlight radiated its presence. It made everyone in the hall turn to look at the light.
“Ready, sis?”
The little kid, true to her magical girl name, was starlight itself.